


One Step Closer to Death

by SherlockChlo



Series: Phan One-Shots [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Broken Engagement, Cancer, Death, Engagement, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Loneliness, Long-Term Relationship(s), Love, M/M, Moving On, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 04:21:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2718590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockChlo/pseuds/SherlockChlo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan had it all planned out; he had been waiting for the ‘right moment’ for longer than he’d wanted to by now. All in all, he wanted to make sure that Phil was finally happy again, if only for a moment. He wanted to take all the pain that Phil had been feeling away- Phil didn’t deserve this, and he didn’t have much time left with Dan either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Step Closer to Death

Dan had it all planned out; he had been waiting for the ‘right moment’ for longer than he’d wanted to by now. All in all, he wanted to make sure that Phil was finally happy again, if only for a moment. He wanted to take all the pain that Phil had been feeling away- Phil didn’t deserve this, and he didn’t have much time left with Dan either.

Four months previously, Phil had been diagnosed with cancer. Lung Cancer. Brain Tumour. Leukaemia. To himself, and to Dan secretly, he was already dead. He was terminal- There was no way to save him, no way to make him magically better, no special red button to push to make the cancer go away.

Phil Lester would die, and Dan wasn’t okay with that. He wanted to do something special. _He had to._

**Dan’s POV**

I don’t remember the conversation particularly well, if I’m honest. All I remember from that moment is Phil holding me tightly into his chest, tears soaking his shirt as I cried silently. Phil, on the other hand, didn’t let one tear fall in front the doctor- I didn’t care in that moment though; Phil was dying. He had gotten a hold of that knowledge and accepted his fate as soon as the doctor told us, and he wasn’t going to forget it until the light drew away from his body.

Originally we had only gone to see the doctor because Phil was experiencing _bad_ headaches; headaches much worse than any of my migraines could ever be. No pain killer would do the trick, it would always be there niggling in his mind. He’d also been having chest pains, but the headaches is what we went in for.

 _Why couldn’t they have_ just _been headaches?_

I think that we, both Phil and I, tried to ignore the symptoms- Or tried to ignore the possibility of it being something worse than just headaches, at least (I wished I’d asked for help sooner, looking back on it now). Not that it mattered really; he had three types of cancer so it wouldn’t have been easy to cure any way. Virtually impossible.

In that small room, where everything changed forever, I heard nothing after “You have cancer. I’m so sorry” as my mind couldn’t comprehend what was going on. I could feel Phil’s hand in mine, him leading me out of the building and into a taxi, back to the flat. All the way home nothing was said. We went straight to bed, cuddling each other tighter than ever before. Phil’s back was against the headboard, my head shoved into the crook of his neck, my hand gripping tightly to his shirt to hold him here with me for as long as I could.

Phil simply stared at the wall of our bedroom. His eyes hadn’t been blue for a long time (I wish I could see them again), so there was no surprise when I looked up into the grey ones to find nothing there. I knew that he was in pain though: His hand as gripping my hip slightly harder than normal. He didn’t show any emotional pain though, his face completely emotionless.

That night though, when he thought that I was asleep, he gripped me even tighter and sobbed into my hair. I guess, to an outsider, if they saw how we were acting they would think that I was the one dying, that I’m the one not going to see my next birthday.

But they would be wrong (Or they were).

We only ever had one proper conversation about the situation. The day after we found out, I left Phil asleep in the bedroom while I went to make him breakfast- It was the least I could do for him after the day we had just had. When he got up, eyes bloodshot, glasses hanging from his face, and clothes hanging from his body (In other words, he had looked gorgeous), I gave him some pancakes and sat down opposite him.

“I didn’t realise how thin you’ve been getting recently.” I mumbled, putting a small piece of pancake and strawberry into my mouth.

“Don’t.” Phil had growled at me, poking at his food with his fork.

I had ignored him and carried on, “We obviously over-looked that when worrying about your head-“

“I. Said. _Don’t._ ” Phil had thrown his cutlery onto his plate, and swiped his plate onto the floor.

I had replied in turn with my own cutlery, my anger boiling over- I don’t even know why I was so angry, “Oh. Why not, Phil? Why can’t we talk about this, huh? This is happening and there is _nothing_ we can do to stop it!”

“Do you really think that I want to talk about my on-coming death? I don’t. I’m dying. There, I said it! Happy?! There’s nothing more for me to say about it.”

I sighed at him in that moment, trying to think of the right thing to say to him, but I just ended up shouting at him instead, “And do _you_ think I want to talk about you dying either? You’re the love of my life, Phil! I’m not going to just sit back and let you die, especially with you being sad the entirety of what time you have left.” I screamed it at him like he was he was far away from me, because it felt like he was pushing us apart intentionally. I looked down at the floor in shame, refusing to meet his eyes, “I don’t remember much of what the doctor said, and I-I want to know… Please.” I sat back down in my chair, my mind exhausted from an event which happened less than twenty-four hours ago.

“Please, Phil.” I whispered to him, pleading for him not to close up.

I heard him sigh as his body hit the chair opposite me. I know that he didn’t want to talk about it, but I needed to know what was said. He took a shaky breath before he started to tell me; I knew that he was scared, “I don’t want to die, Dan. I have so much more that I want to do. I-I’m not done here yet. And now time is working against me. I don’t want to waste time, precious, _precious_ time, talking about my inevitable death, because it wastes the time I have left with you.” I had been watching Phil as he talked, studying the emotions in eyes- They were more emotional than his face. His head lifted up to meet my eyes dead-on as he continued, “The cancer started in my lungs, then developed to leukaemia, and then the brain tumour… There’s no cure- I’m dying as we speak. You never know, maybe we’ll live forever in the stars.” (I don’t know why he was being so sarcastic with me…)

Phil got up and left after that, not speaking to me the entire day.

When he came to bed, however, he pulled me close and whispered ‘I’m sorry’ into my hair so many times that I lost count. I didn’t want him to be sorry. I wanted him to live…

A month after we received the news and we finally started to make love again. The only thing I missed about it was the closeness, the intimacy; we were joined together. We were one. As soon as we began, Phil treating me as though I was the one with cancer; he took it slowly and kissed every part of my body as he had done the first time.

There used to be times where I would wrap my legs around Phil’s waist tightly, begging and screaming for him to go faster. Harder. Not anymore.

Phil gradually became himself again, over time (Or as close as he could get).

The man that I had fallen in love with was coming back to me.

He stopped making videos, only appearing in mine from time to time. We had continued ‘ _Dan and Phil Games_ ’ for a while, until people’s comments were no longer about Phan or the actual games we were playing, they were about Phil’s appearance.

_Phil is getting too skinny…_

_Why does he always look so ill? Is he ill?_

_He doesn’t look like Phil anymore._

Phil couldn’t take them.

A night after posting another chapter of Dil’s life, his kitchen setting on fire in this particular episode, Phil stood in front of me and looked down at the floor. His hands wouldn’t keep still and his body kept twitching.

“Are you okay, Phil?” It was a stupid thing to ask really, but he wanted to act as normal as possible.

“Dan… I don’t think that I should do ‘ _Dan and Phil Games_ ’ anymore…” His voice had been tiny- I had never heard him so quiet before. He kept looking up at me through his fringe, a fringe thick with grease because the cancer made it like that.

“Why’s that, sweetheart?” I had asked him, patting my lap for him to come and sit down on- He did just that. Sat on the sofa, with Phil curled up in my lap, his York hoodie on and the hood pulled up, and his frail fingers clutching my shirt. I helped him very tightly that day (I should have held him tighter).

“You know why.” He had whispered, burying his face into the crook of my neck. “All of the comments on our videos are the same. Today was the worst though…”

“What did they say?” Phil had grabbed his laptop quickly and loaded the Sims video up, pressing pause immediately so he couldn’t hear his own, much more broken, voice. He scrolled down to the comment section and pushed the Macbook into my view, his own face back against my neck.

_Phil actually looks disgusting now- Ew!_

_You really need to put some weight on, and clean your hair. You look awful, Phil!_

_Dan, why are you letting your boyfriend look like a tramp?_

_Phil: Kill yourself! You look dead anyway!_

I stopped reading the comments there- These people were attacking how my boyfriend looked when he had absolutely no control over it. I knew that Phil didn’t like confrontation, so I didn’t reply to the comments- He didn’t want me to.

I hadn’t realised that I had been crying until Phil started to kiss my tears away. “Please don’t cry for me.” He had whispered against my cheek, “I don’t deserve it…” My hands gripped tightly onto Phil’s form, trying not to add more bruising to what he already had, more blue and purple.

“You don’t deserve to be told to die… Not under any circumstance.”

“I _am_ ill, Dan.” Phil had sighed against my face, “Do you think we should tell them?”

“If it stops them picking on you about your looks, then yeah.” I kissed Phil’s lips softly and whispered, “I still think you’re beautiful.”

“And that’s all that really matters to me in the end.” Phil smiled up at me lovingly, his eyes still, surprisingly, shining. They weren’t the gorgeous blue they were before, but I had grown fond of the grey.

“I know people are starting to notice, so we should make a video about it. What do you say?”

 _‘Now is the perfect time’_ I thought to myself.

“Phil, would you like to go to the park?”

“What, now? I thought we were-“

“We’ll make the video when we get back- For now, _to the park_!” At the end, I held my fist in the air and shouted.

“You’re such an idiot, Dan.”

“You love me for it…” I had teased him, smiling down knowingly.

“Yes, I do.”

“Good.” I had smiled, kissing him softly. “Right. Park time.” I sang badly, picking both of our bodies up and twirling us around in the air, Phil giggling loudly and clinging to my neck. His eyes closed as he continued to laugh and smile at me, my body still turning on the spot. Eventually, I put him down, holding onto his waist tightly. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Phil breathed into my neck, his head almost completely hidden from the World. “Can we go to the park now?” he asks, “I want to feed the ducks.” He giggled again in excitement.

“Sure thing, love.” I giggled along with him, taking his hand in mine tightly. I walked him to the door, wrapping his scarf around his neck snugly. His gloves were next, and after that his coat. Phil then went to help me put my own stuff on, but I stopped him by placing a small kiss to the palm of his hand. “You don’t have to.”

“You helped me, why can’t I return the favour?” Phil had whispered it very quietly, but I still heard the hurt in his voice. I nodded silently.

“Can we go to the park now?”

“Yeah, let’s go!” Phil giggled to himself, his hands clapping together in excitement.

“It’s only the park, Phil,” I said after him, pulling my coat and scarf on, “calm your tits.”

We walked together hand-in-hand to the park. Once there I found the bench that I had planned everything out on, but there was an elderly couple sitting on it, so I had to wait to put said plan into action. _‘How to pass the time…_ Ducks _!’_

“Daaaaannn…” Phil whined at me, swinging our joined hands slightly as we walked. “You said that we could feed the ducks!” (I never could understand how this man was almost twenty-eight.)

“Phiiiiiillll, we’re just getting there, okay?” I made sure to whine back at him. Phil had smiled and giggled to himself all the way to the park, and he continued as we walked towards the ducks. “You’re in a good mood today.” I smiled down at him, my heart warmed with the love that I immediately felt every time I looked at him.

“It feels like something good is going to happen.” He had shrugged, as though the feeling was nothing. Phil’s hand had gripped mine slightly tighter, as he had whispered, “Today is a good day.”

“Well, these ducks are going to make your day even better than it already is- Look, there they are!” I smiled and pointed at the ducks- There was five of them, all huddled together in the bitter wind. I was surprised that they’re by the water, well ice, at since it was so cold today. I’m pretty sure that ducks don’t have heated houses to hide in.

“They look really cold, Dan…” He whispered, but I had already known what he was trying to do.

“Phil, we’re not taking these ducks home with us. Surely you don’t want another ‘Hat Fic’ made?!” I had grimaced at that, the memory of reading it making me shiver slightly. Yeah, I had decided that we were _never_ getting a hamster, even if Phil was down and kissing my feet.

“N-no…”

“Good. Let’s feed the ducks, grab some coffee and then go and sit down.”

Phil fed the ducks, a smile on his face the entire time. I had just stood back and watched the happiness flow out of him. When my back was turned, Phil had tried to sneak a duck into his coat, but it didn’t work as the duck flapped its wings right in Phil’s face, causing him to nearly fall into the pond. I caught him though, I always will.

“Thank you.” He had whispered, his face buried deep into my neck.

“I’ll _always_ catch you, Phil. You know that.” And that’s when I did it. Who needs a stupid bench when you have love? I pushed Phil away from my body slightly, and repeated the words I said to myself so many times in the mirror, “Phil. I love you. In my twenty-three years of life I have never met anyone else who has a heart as warm as yours- So golden. Whenever you smile it lights my mood up, even on the darkest of days. Whenever you laugh you warm me up slightly more. And whenever we make eye contact, longing to be holding each other a little bit closer, my heart and stomach do the flippy over thing that you get on a roller coaster. Your eyes, the colour of seawater, are absolutely gorgeous just like you, inside and out. You’re so beautiful a person, Phil. Everyone else agrees with me, and that’s why I’ve brought you here today. To tell you how much I love you in five little words…” I had dropped down on one knee at that point, the cold immediately getting to it, my heart beating loudly in my ears. I had held Phil’s hand tightly in mine, his mouth had dropped open in surprise.

“Phil, will you marry me?”

Phil had just looked down at me, his face almost completely blank. I was worried that his reaction meant ‘no’, but then Phil came back to me.

“Yes,” Came the barely audible whisper. I looked up at him and smiled with both relief and love. “Yes. Yes I will marry you.” Phil had smiled back at me, his face looking as though it was about to crumble apart- I didn’t care. He still remained beautiful to me. Especially those eyes… “Dan?”

I had blinked quickly, I had been staring at him for far too long, apparently. “Sorry.” I blushed, making my cheeks turn a darker red than they were from the cold. “You’re just so beautiful.” Was my excuse for staring at him.

“So are you.” Phil had replied, his cheeks a pleasant pink now. I had stood up and held his head in my hands, placing a soft kiss to his frozen lips. “I love you.” I had then reached into my pocket and grabbed the small velvet box hidden in there. When I had opened it, Phil had gasped in surprise. “Dan, this must have cost you a fortune.”

“You’re worth every penny and more.” I pulled the ring out from the box. It was made from 14k white gold, and was encrusted with three blue diamonds across the band, made to look like shooting stars. When I saw it in the shop, I had fallen immediately in love with it. It was so beautiful and perfect for Phil.

“’We’ll live forever in the stars’.” Phil had read the engraving and gasped slightly, he was shocked that I remembered obviously. “I have one for you too.” My ring had black diamonds encrusted on a 14k rose gold band, it too was engraved. ‘ _Love you to the moon and back_ ’… Putting the rings on each other’s fingers, we had stood by the pond, hugging each other close, kissing like there was no more time left for either of us.

For Phil that slowly became true.

After the best day of my life, everything started going to shit.

There were arguments over food, arguments over our engagement and arguments over Phil. To me, he was acting as though he had completely given up on life now that we were engaged. He now had my ring on his finger, and that’s all that mattered to him- He had done the final thing that he wanted to do, so now he could die.

And that’s exactly when Phil started to die faster.

We had been making food, I don’t remember exactly what, when Phil had started his journey to oblivion. He had been complaining all week about his head and his chest, but I hadn’t realised how bad it had actually been. Phil just fell, knocked his head on the kitchen cabinet and remained on the floor unconscious as I scrambled around for my mobile.

“ _999 Emergency. Which service do you require?_ ”

“Ambulance please.”

“ _Can you tell me what’s happened?_ ”

“It’s my f-fiancé, he-he’s got cancer. He’s f-fallen and knocked himself unconscious.” “ _Okay. Can you tell me your location?_ ” I quickly provided the operator all the information that he needed so that Phil could receive help as soon as possible. In the distance, I heard the sirens approaching faster and faster… I just sat against the wall, hugging my knees to my chest as a source of comfort. It didn’t make anything better for me though- I felt completely helpless, even when the paramedics came in and took Phil away.

Even as they all left me on the floor, I continued to do nothing. There was nothing that I could do; I couldn’t even stop myself from crying. After how long, I didn’t know, I looked down at myself and screamed. Phil needed me, and I had just been crying, still on the kitchen floor… What am I doing?

At that moment, I grabbed my mobile, coat and shoes, and ran from the apartment. I _needed_ to get to Phil! _What if I’m too late?_ I asked myself. _Oh god._ I really, in that moment, hoped that I would make it to him in time- I’d left him to suffer on his own. I ran as fast as my body would allow me to, my lungs and muscles screaming for oxygen as I got closer and closer to Phil. It still wasn’t close enough. My head started to burn, the lack of breathing really taking a toll on my body, as I tried to run faster than I have before.

Fifteen minutes after leaving the apartment, I had made to the hospital. My body was exhausted and sweating, my muscles and lungs trying to get as much oxygen into them as they could possibly take now that it was available. Inside the hospital, I pushed other people out of the way in an attempt to reach my fiancé as soon as possible… _I still can’t believe I left him alone._

At the reception, I gave in Phil’s name. The woman took a few minutes to find him, so my hand was knocking against the desk rather hard and loudly by the time she finally gave me the room number. Turns out, Phil had been admitted into ICU for, what can I only assume, being in that bad a condition.

Either way, I wasn’t prepared what I saw next.

Phil looked tiny in the massive hospital bed, especially since he had been surrounded by tubes and machines of all different shapes and sizes. His eyes had been closed (I never did see those eyes again) and his breathing regular due to the tube in his mouth. I’d never seen him so helpless, until after I suppose. Phil’s skin was almost transparent in the light, that _horrible_ hospital light that you never seem to find anywhere else.

I had pulled a chair up next to Phil’s bed, and gripped his hand firmly in my own (I hadn’t held on tight enough).

“You can’t leave me, Phil. Not now.” I had whispered harshly into the hand that I had taken, and placed against my mouth. There was so much more that we had to do together, and there he was about to leave me, or so I thought (Little did I know how close he actually was to leaving).

That’s when the doctor walked in, his face emotionless- A face that he’s probably had to use many times before delivering bad news.

“He’s going to die here tonight, isn’t he?” I didn’t look up at the doctor; I wanted to see Phil as much as possible before he went. “Will he wake up before then?”

“He might do, but we can’t be one hundred per-cent sure.” He had paused for a moment, maybe waiting for me to actually look at him. When I didn’t, he continued with a sigh, “Either way, I’m sorry for your loss.” He had left us alone after that.

I waited for hours for Phil to wake up, not once leaving the bedside (How could I have?).

He didn’t wake up.

Phil left me alone with one long screeching noise to let me know that he’d gone.

He left me without saying goodbye.

The doctors and nurses let me stay with Phil for hours after he died- Not once did I cry.

I talked and whispered to Phil as though as he was still alive. It didn’t help me grieve any more than I already was.

I told everyone the next morning. No one had even known that Phil had cancer, or that it was terminal. No one even knew that he was dead.

I decided that a video, linked everywhere and to everyone, even Phil’s family, would be the quickest and easiest way to get the news to everyone.

“ _Hello. I have some very important news to tell you all._

_Unfortunately, there won’t be as much passion in this video as there are in the others, because something has happened that nobody except me is aware of… It’s not happy news, basically._

_No…_ ” I stopped briefly to cough and hold back tears.

“ _Erm… It’s sad that none of you knew how ill Phil really was. We never told you, but we were going to- We just never got round to it, I suppose. And then we got engaged and life was almost perfect, so we were side tracked for a while. I-Hmm… It wasn’t an intentional thing, so please don’t hate us._

 _Phil… P-Phil… H-he was the love of my life. There will never_ ever _be someone quite like Philip Michael Lester._

_And, it’s time to tell you I think, that the love of my life is gone._

_Phil passed away last night. At twenty past eleven exactly._

_He had cancer and none of you even knew. Not even his family knew. He told me once that he didn’t want to dampen your mood with the news that he was going to die. He said, ‘_ Everyone dies in the end, Dan. You know that. _’ But then the YouTube comments won._

_Phil quit YouTube, the one thing he loved just as much as he loved me, he said. People tormented him about his appearance for weeks until Phil had finally had enough…_

_Someone told him to kill himself…Well, you haven’t exactly got your wish perfectly, but at least he’s gone, eh? What a low_ fucking _blow!_

 _People would continuously call him disgusting, and tell him to have a shower and stop acting like a tramp, when really it wasn’t Phil’s fault that he looked like that at all. He had fucking_ terminal cancer _, and he gave up YouTube because people are so obsessed with how others look, that he just had enough of the abuse. I don’t blame him._

_Apparently, it was the leukaemia that killed him in the end, but there were other cancers in Phil’s body as well. He was almost gone completely by the time I got there last night._

_There were lots of thought going through my head as I sat there, clutching onto Phil’s hand as though that would bring him back somehow. But one of the main ones being the last thing Phil has heard me say to him. We were cooking, and he spilt something down himself, so I called him an idiot._

_I hope he didn’t think I meant it…_

_Any way. He had a sharp pain in his head, tripped and fell smacking his head on the kitchen worktop. The crack wasn’t pleasant. They took him off in an ambulance, and that was that. By the time I got there, Phil Lester was practically dead already._

_I-I’m sorry that this is the way that we-_ I _told you, but it was the easiest way for me._

_Now, if you don’t mind me, I’m going to go and grieve my dead fiancé._

_Maybe next time, think before you slate someone on their appearance. Maybe they can’t help it._

_Bye, Internet._ ”

I haven’t been on YouTube since, except to watch Phil’s videos. They only make me cry though, so I try not to watch them as much as possible.

It’s been hard, honestly. All of the shit in my life seemed to grow even more than before. At least I used to have someone to hold onto and cry into when I needed them. Now I have no one, not really.

It’s been twenty years since Phil died. I’m married to Indie, whom I love very much. She’s no Phil, but she’s certainly very special to me. We’ve been married thirteen years, after she practically turned my life around- Nobody has done that since Phil died, so she’s pretty fucking amazing. Together, we have two daughters. Our eldest is eleven, Lyra. We named her after Lyra in The Golden Compass- One of Indie’s favourite books.

I chose our five-year-old’s name. When I managed to actually play the game, I named her after the Walking Dead’s Clementine. We actually do call her ‘Clem’ for short. Why not? What can I say, I’m a nerd.

None of my girls understand the love I had, and still have, for Phil Lester. Indie told me that she used to watch some of his videos after I had cried all night. She even watched all of our collabs together, and admitted that she saw what we had together. I think she tries to understand what I’ve lost, but she’ll never truly understand.

So, that’s what happened. I don’t expect you to forgive me for quitting YouTube, or for leaving my fans out of my life in every aspect, but it’s what I needed in order to move on.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed. :)


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